


Shards

by chaosmanor



Series: On the Inevitability of Falling [3]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Emo, F/M, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-01
Updated: 2007-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:22:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Shards

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.

  
Seeing Kate was hard, walking through the corridors of the clinic; not making eye contact with the staff, avoiding looking at the other patients wasn’t much fun either, but seeing Kate sitting cross-legged on her bed, feeding tube tucked behind one ear, hidden by her hair, nearly had Orlando in tears.

Kate looked sad, struggling to smile and not managing it, and Orlando sat beside her on the bed and took her hand. She let him turn it over and lift it to his lips to kiss her palm.

There was no need for Kate to say anything, but she did anyway.

“I need to not be worrying about a wedding,” she said. “I have to get better first, learn to be happy by myself before I can be happy with you.”

“You want to break up?” Orlando asked, and found his voice was thick and strange and his eyelashes were stuck together a little.

Kate shrugged, shoulders suddenly prominent through her thin T-shirt. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s just, well, it feels like another pressure, and I can’t take that at the moment. Maybe when I’m recovered, and after filming Superman is over, I’ll feel like I can cope, but right now it’s too much.”

“You felt like I was pressuring you?” Orlando asked, and Kate’s hand was so frail in his that it broke his heart.

“You, everyone,” Kate said, and tears slid down her face.

He was crying too. “If you need time, of course you can have it. You just let me know when…” He gave up trying to speak, and they clung to each other, and he realised he didn’t understand anything, not anymore.

 

* * *

 

The code for the security gates hadn’t changed, and that wasn’t really a surprise. The front lawn was overgrown, bristling weeds and Orlando dodged the calcified dog shit and climbed the steps up to the front porch.

Boxes filled the porch, spilling newspapers and magazines, bicycle parts, photo frames and gear cogs, and a nostalgia so intense it almost took his breath away hit Orlando. Viggo kept everything, just in case it came in useful, maybe he kept answers along with his memories.

It occurred to him that Viggo might just refuse to see him, and the car keys were sharp and reassuring when he felt for them as he knocked on the door.

There was the same surprising affection in Viggo’s eyes when he opened the screen door that Orlando had seen at the party, and he smiled back.

“Hey,” Viggo said. “Come on in.”

Orlando followed him into the kitchen, stepping around an overflowing laundry basket in the hall, and Viggo hitched up his worn jeans and put the kettle on.

“Tea?” Viggo asked, reaching for mugs.

“Thanks,” Orlando said, and his composure slipped a little when Viggo rummaged around in the cupboard and produced the mug that had been Orlando’s when he’d lived there.

Viggo rinsed the mug out and dropped a tea bag into the mug, and poured himself coffee from the percolator. “What’s up?” Viggo asked, and his eyes were steady on Orlando over the rim of his chipped mug.

The kettle boiled, steaming then clunking as it turned itself off, and Viggo poured hot water into Orlando’s mug and then opened the fridge for the milk, and Orlando found himself searching for words.

“I, um, need to talk about what happened with us,” Orlando said. “I still don’t know what went wrong, and I’m worried it’s happening again.”

Viggo asked, “Problems with Kate?”

Orlando nodded. “Obviously,” he said. “And she doesn’t seem able to tell me why, not in a way I understand. I thought you might be able to tell me the unpleasant truth.”

Viggo pushed Orlando’s mug across the counter and leant back against the sink and studied Orlando. “You’re the one who left,” he pointed out. “You tell me why you went.”

The goodwill Viggo had shown seemed to have evaporated, and Orlando’s stomach churned in response. “You hurt me,” Orlando said. “A lot.”

“Hurt you?” Viggo said. “How?”

Eye contact was too uncomfortable to maintain so Orlando dropped his eyes to his mug. “Physically,” Orlando said eventually. “I was marked, all the time.”

“Look at me,” Viggo said, and the fingers that took Orlando’s mug out of his hands, then tipped his chin up, were gentle, barely brushing Orlando’s skin. “If you’re going to accuse me of abusing you, I want to see your eyes.”

There was no anger in Viggo’s eyes, in fact he looked amused, his eyes half-closed with suppressed smile.

“Orli,” he said gently. “You used to beg me to do that. Don’t you remember? The tighter I held you, the more you got off on it. You used to rip my back to shreds, ruin my sheets, probably drove the neighbours crazy too.”

Blood rushed to Orlando’s feet and he wondered if he was going to throw up. He could almost feel Viggo’s hands still, clamped around his wrists, his weight pinning Orlando down, knee digging into the back of his thigh, teeth tearing at him, Viggo’s voice so hard and cold against his ear.

There’d been no gentleness there, no affection, but Viggo’s palm was warm and smooth against Orlando’s cheek now and Orlando squeezed his eyes shut.

“You hurt me too,” Viggo said, his words washing over Orlando’s closed eyelids.

(He hadn't fallen for Viggo, it had been more like floating than falling, whisper of lips, whisper of words, fingertips and tonguetip, persuasive and coaxing, until he'd surrendered. Feather-touch, feather-light, until a gust of wind could blow him away, all of his resistance and doubts gone, eroded by scraps of poetry torn out of notebooks and late-night phone calls that made him ache for something he'd never had before.)

“How?” Orlando asked, and when he opened his eyes, Viggo pulled his hand away, stepped back across the kitchen, walked away.

( The first time, they'd spent hours talking on Viggo's deck, while a party surged around them, and Orlando had been caught by Viggo's words, his almost-promises, the intensity of his gaze. When everyone else had left, they'd kissed and Orlando had touched Viggo's beard, his cheek, his arm, and Viggo had touched him too, sliding his clothes off, palms across skin, pinned him down, taken him.

Nothing had prepared Orlando for what Viggo could do to him, no previous experience, no imagined touch was as good as what had happened between them. )

 

He was in his studio, sitting bent over on the battered couch, hands over his face, when Orlando found him.

The floor of the studio was littered with pages covered in scribble, scraps of sketches, the detritus of Viggo’s mind, and Orlando squatted down in front of him. He leant forward, so his forehead pressed against the top of Viggo’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Orlando said. “Stupid question. Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Viggo said, and his voice sounded bleak. Orlando could smell Viggo, oil paint and cigarettes, skin, hair, and Orlando pressed a kiss to the top of Viggo’s scalp.

The first kiss was gentle and slow, coffee and time, and he let Viggo lower him backwards, down onto the worn carpet and papers, and the kiss went on and on. Viggo’s hands were in his hair, holding his head steady, then he opened his mouth, found Viggo’s tongue with his own, and they both moaned.

“Come to bed,” Viggo whispered against his ear, and he knew that this was to give him a chance to pull away, run away, save himself.

There was Kate; and there was the weight of Viggo, the rub of denim, the brush of stubble, and Orlando whispered, “Yes.”

 

The smell of Viggo’s bedroom almost brought Orlando to his knees, but Viggo steadied him, and Orlando clung onto the carved wood of Viggo’s footboard while Viggo closed his blinds.

Both pillows were crumpled, both sides of the bed unmade. There was a coffee mug, lipstick, tissues, a book by Sherri Tepper on the bedside table that had once been Orlando’s, then Viggo slid his arms around Orlando from behind, pressing his body against Orlando’s.

“Her name’s Leandra,” Viggo murmured against Orlando’s neck, and his hands were underneath Orlando’s T-shirt, pressing against his belly, finding a nipple. Need flared through Orlando, painfully bright and desperate, and Viggo’s cock pressed urgently against the curve of Orlando’s arse while his hand eased Orlando’s zip down carefully.

 

Orlando’s memory was full of sharp, angry fucking; but the hands that stroked him were kind and gentle, and there was something fragile about the noises Viggo made when Orlando’s mouth pressed kisses down his body.

He buried his nose in Viggo’s pubic hair, breathing in deeply, pushing the flat of his tongue against the fullness of Viggo’s balls, slid two fingers inside him slowly, and when he glanced up, Viggo had both hands clenched around the struts of his bed head so tightly that the muscles of his arms looked like bands of steel.

It was too late to stop this madness, too late to stop himself from lowering his mouth to Viggo’s cock, to stop himself from falling, too late to think of anything except how much he needed Viggo to come in his mouth, right then, before they both died, before the world ended, before Orlando’s mind shattered.

He crawled up Viggo’s bed, lowered his mouth to Viggo’s, come-slick lips, and Viggo kissed him and threaded trembling fingers into Orlando’s hair, then rolled them both over.

He was so close to coming, so turned on it hurt, stomach muscles fluttering, and the first slither of Viggo’s tongue over his arse pushed him over the edge, but Viggo kept going, tongue-fucking him slow and deep, so that he slumped back on the bed, legs spread wide, Viggo’s hands lifting his hips up, holding his knee up against his chest while his own come trickled across his belly, pooling and melting and spreading.

He was still drifting when Viggo knelt over Orlando, holding his weight on one arm, using the other hand to guide the head of his cock against Orlando’s body, and there was so much pain, so much need, in his eyes, and Orlando whispered, “Please.”

It hurt, impossible stretch and burn, and Orlando screamed, it felt so fucking good, and Viggo was so fucking right, he’d always wanted Viggo to hurt him, he’d always wanted him to break him.

“Oh God,” Viggo groaned, and he was buried deep inside Orlando, hard as steel, mouth liquid kisses when he stifled Orlando’s moans. He began to move, rocking into Orlando slowly, and Orlando clung to him.

It couldn’t last, not when it was so raw, so desperate, and Orlando could hear himself pleading with Viggo, begging him to go harder, faster, give him more, to fucking hurt him. It was so terribly wrong, so perfectly right, and the bed head crashed against the wall over and over, and there was nothing like it in the entire world.

Their bodies were wet with sweat, there was blood in Orlando’s mouth, on his hands where they clutched helplessly at Viggo’s shoulders, then Viggo bit down hard on Orlando’s shoulder and cried out.

Orlando was beyond coming, beyond thinking or talking, ragged gasps blocked his throat, and Viggo’s come was slippery inside his body, and he was sobbing when Viggo slipped out of him and rolled onto his back, then off the bed.

 

Orlando left without showering, or opening Viggo’s studio door to say goodbye.


End file.
